to stone,” says Nicoleta. Of course, that’s horseshit. I just hate the screams, same as Tree with his bark skin, Unu and Du with their two heads and Hawk with her wings and claws. As good as we have it in Gomorrah, no one wants to be a freak.
The fiddle and drums fade to silence as I raise my arms.
The tent’s ceiling and grass floor disappear, replaced with colorful galaxies so the crowd seems suspended within the cosmos. The woman beside Count Pomp-di-pomp shrieks and lifts her feet off the endless, black ground and then wipes the sweat from her forehead with her pearl-studded glove.
Nicoleta jabbers a spiel about the wonders of my sight, as if my lack of eyes allows me to see more than everyone else. Between my forehead and cheekbones is flat skin, but I can see just the same as the rest of the world. I’m an illusion-worker, the rarest form of jynx-worker, gifted in mirages real enough to touch, smell, hear and taste. My most intricate illusions are my family and the other members of the freak show: living figments of my imagination.
I’ve never met another illusion-worker—only read about them—but as far as I know, I am the only one born without eyes who relies on my jynx-work to see. No doctor or medicine man can explain how this works. Maybe I don’t see like everyone else does—it’s not as if I could test that out—but I see, color and all, and I’m not one to question things I don’t really need answers for.
I throw all of my energy into this performance, so much that my Strings are fully visible to me and tangle at my feet. I avoid moving around onstage, in case I trip. Normally, the Strings aren’t solid, but when I’m commanding this much power? My ankle just might catch, and I’ll topple into the front row.
Fabricated constellations whirl past, and the audience grips the edges of their seats. The planets orbit the room as if the tent marks the center of the universe and that universe is performing for us, its revolutions a celestial dance and me, the musician.
During my ten-minute act of shooting stars, crescent moons and burning suns, I’m too consumed by the exertion of my performance to notice if Jiafu stole Count Pomp-di-pomp’s ring. The illusion dissipates, and I lower my hands. I stare around the tent with exhilaration, and my chest heaves up and down beneath my thick robes. I was marvelous.
The audience claps. Count Pomp-di-pomp’s sapphire no longer glistens on his finger. Which means Jiafu managed to steal it undetected.
The seven other illusions join me for our final bows and farewell to the audience. Tired, I struggle to maintain control of the two more problematic illusions, Tree and Blister. One slip, and Tree could trample the audience under his clubbed feet. Or Blister could hiccup and set the tent on fire. Again.
Jiafu lurks in the back of the tent and picks his teeth with a steel comb. I avoid his gaze so the audience doesn’t turn to where I’m looking. His body is cloaked in shadow, barely visible against the black and red stripes of the tent, except for the whites of his eyes and the light reflecting off his comb. With his scarred face and patched-up clothes, he looks like a beast who just crawled out of the kennel.
The illusions exit stage left, except for me and Gill, whom I wheel in his tank to stage right. I rarely see him without his diver’s helmet, which he wears whenever outside of his tank. His chin-length black hair is suspended in the water, and his skin prunes all over, even his silver-toned face, like a piece of rotten fruit. His smile for the audience disappears the moment we’re out of sight.
“Why was Jiafu here?” he demands.
I smile and tilt my head to the side. “Who?”
Before he can answer, I slip around him backstage. I don’t feel like listening to any of his lectures tonight. I know Gill means well, but we’ve argued about Jiafu before, and we’re both more stubborn than mules and keep kicking up the same dirt. Neither of us will change our minds.
Venera is seated at her vanity, scanning her makeup collection and slathering a glittery lotion across her brown skin. As per her daily ritual, she’ll wash off her stage powder and reapply a new look for the Downhill parties later tonight. Hawk bickers with Unu and Du about which game they’ll play—chess or lucky coins. Blister reaches for his favorite top from his cauldron cradle while Crown leans forward in his chair to help him. Besides Gill, only Tree is absent—he prefers to stay outdoors when we’re not performing.
I’ve barely reached my own vanity when Nicoleta corners me.
“Why do you keep working for Jiafu?” she asks. Between her and Gill scolding me and everyone else bickering with each other, my only moments of peace are on stage. “He isn’t trust—”
“You all know why I work for him. Or am I the only one who cares about Kahina?” I tear off my mask and toss it on the vanity. The money I earn working for Jiafu goes to medicine for Kahina and her snaking sickness, a malady she’s battled for an impressive five years. Although Villiam, the owner of the Gomorrah Festival, adopted me as a young child, it was Kahina the fortune-worker who raised me. It was Kahina who taught me to play lucky coins, to love nature, to embrace being a misfit.
And while Kahina didn’t exactly raise my illusions, they love her as much as I do. She visits often with gifts of sweets and handmade knits.
Nicoleta sighs and fiddles with the ruby hairpin tucked behind her ear. “I know why, but there are safer ways to earn money, Sorina. I just don’t want Jiafu to start expecting things from you, to keep you working for him even when Kahina...gets better.”
I ignore the hesitation in her words. Kahina will improve. If the snaking sickness intended to claim her, it would have slithered its way into her heart years ago.
“Jiafu adores me,” I say. “And he’s terrified of me.”
“The way every man should see you,” Venera chimes in from beside me as she applies her signature black lipstick. I covertly hold up a hand, and she high-fives me behind my back. At least Venera is always on my side.
“Jiafu knows I’m not one of his cronies,” I tell Nicoleta.
Nicoleta purses her lips. “What if Jiafu gets caught by Up-Mountain officials?” Nicoleta is an ardent supporter of what-ifs. “He could take you down with him.”
“Could you stop? You’re giving me anxiety,” Venera and I say together.
Of all my illusions, Venera and I are the most alike. I made her to be the perfect best friend for me—fashion-savvy, fun and stop-and-stare gorgeous. The younger-looking illusions—Hawk, Unu and Du and Blister—are like my younger siblings. Crown: my grandfather. Gill: the voice of authority. Nicoleta: the bossy older sister. And Tree is...Tree.
I hunt through my various masks—all small, covering only the eye area—and select a simple one with matte sequins, a satin interior and a spider design on the top right corner. I never venture into public without a mask, where Up-Mountain children can gape while their parents call me monstrous, or an abomination, or any other colorful choice of word. I have no eyebrows, no eyes, not even indents where eyes should be. When I was younger, I tried to cast an illusion of these features, but something about the cold emptiness in my fake eyes looked even more unsettling than my normal appearance—nor could I maintain the image for more than a few minutes. Though I made peace with my face years ago, I don’t have the thickest skin—it only takes a single whisper or sickened stare to reopen old wounds.
But I have nice lips, I remind myself. I line them in blood-red lipstick, which pairs devilishly with my dark mask. My skin is fair, my straight
